Writer Katya Metelitsa about favorite books
IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and other heroines about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, the writer Katya Metelitsa shares her stories about favorite books.
In childhood I was a netsuke "Reading Girl": I did not part with the books, I trembled over them. She broke her eyes, as my parents used to say, who themselves, by the way, earnestly collected the library. Blue Chekhov, light yellow Alexey Tolstoy, dark green Hugo, black Hemingway - as I loved “Fiesta”, as wept over “Farewell, weapon!”. A series of "Literary Monuments" with cool notes, a series of "Library of World Literature" series with a pegasus on the logo, an anthology of "Three Centuries of Russian Poetry".
I read some volumes, stuck on strange, out of nowhere, publications that came from; she passionately loved, for example, the book "Songbirds of the Moscow Region", re-read it, and learned it almost by heart. The robin, oriole and nightjar were my heroes. And the nuthatch, especially the nuthatch. One day I was swinging with the "Singing Birds" on a swing, dropped her, rushed under the swing - save, swing thumped me on the back of my head, nuzzled in the sand, then went all wounded. The book had to be glued together, and then it got lost somewhere. I was already fifteen years old, I think. Well, maybe twelve. I have not the most rapid development, to be honest.
In general, even though I, as a decent person, read everything that is necessary, my personal style of communication with books has always been very childish, childish. Read and be afraid - for example, the Baskervilles Dog. Sebastian Zhaprizo scared me a lot: “Killing summer”, “Trap for Cinderella”, “Lady in a car with glasses and a gun” - it seemed to me that all this was about me. But it is already at sixteen.
When I after university (I studied as a journalist) began to re-read the Russian classics, I realized that I had never actually read it. In addition to Dostoevsky and Gogol - these were always right in the blood. But here’s “Anna Karenina” - I even made a comic for her to convey my amazement. It seems to me that nobody actually read this book at all - judging by how everyone is amazed and they don’t believe me when I quote from it. Or Pushkin's "Queen of Spades" - this is pure cyberpunk. "War and Peace" - still can not make an effort to read normally, I can not overcome the school injury. And here's another - Chekhov. Prose, lead. So grown up, so scary. What is there Welbeck.
Detectives, сhiсk lit - I once read plenty, but now I don’t read at all. It just doesn't give any pleasure, it’s very boring. "Book novelties of the year" - also ceased to follow this, sheer disappointment. Although here's “Goldfinch” Donna Tartt really liked. But her "Secret Story" - she hardly couldn? T, "Little Friend" - also could not. Franzen's "Amendments" - this book just plowed me through. As if the year went to a psychoanalyst, and not voluntarily. But his other novels are just past: maybe they were translated somehow not or not written for me. In general, I now almost do not read fiction at all - only books about the structure of the world and how the brain works. Well, and Pelevin - but this is a special, such communication session, the exit to the radio.
"Serafini Code"
I call it first, because if I had to choose a single book ("on a desert island"), I would take it. This is the most fascinating book in the world, a picture book, a toy book. SERAPHINIANUS stands for Luigi Serafini, that is, "Strange and unusual representations of animals, plants and hellish incarnations of normal things from the depths of consciousness of the naturalist / anti-naturalist Luigi Serafini ".
Visual Encyclopedia of the fictional world, written in a fictional language. History and geography, chemistry and physics, chimera plants and surreal animals, mechanisms and all sorts of things (Serafini was engaged in industrial design), a bizarre civilization. 360 pages of pure ecstasy. Looking at, guessing, dofantizing it is possible to infinity, never get bored.
Jorge Luis Borges
"Encyclopedia of fictional creatures"
One of the books that inspired Luigi Serafini to create his "Code". And for a long time, the only favorite book of my eldest son Mitya, from his age of about five and maybe up to ten. The Ink Monkey and the Six-Footed Antelope, Eloi and Morlock, Kumbaba and Gatobleps — these were the heroes of his childhood. The coolest book, and in our 1994 edition, it is also under the same cover with Ludwig Soucek's Encyclopedia of Universal Misconceptions. A rather strange publishing whim, but also a good chance to form a certain worldview. Criticism of popular beliefs plus cataloging fantasies.
Leonardo da Vinci, Marco Polo
"Judgments about science and art" and "Book about the diversity of the world"
Two completely different books, but in my system they exist in a pair - precisely in contrast. They are very cool to read together, you can even in parallel: a little from there, a little from here. Leonardo da Vinci - solid icy sarcasm, the surgeon's humor. According to the principle "call things in your own words." More precisely - "we will describe them as they are." As he describes, for example, the wedding custom. Or, for example, sausage: a pig that swallows itself.
And here on this place you can make a bookmark and go to Marco Polo: with what childish amazement he describes a tailed snake met in distant lands with sharp teeth and clawed paws - a truly devilish creature. (Crocodile? Varan? Probably a monitor lizard. But, by the way, not four, but two paws are higher than the belly.) You read this and just walk the streets much more interesting, not to mention everything else.
Kate fox
"Watching the British"
An incredibly funny and witty book written by a hereditary anthropologist: Kate Fox's parents ran them with their sister to play with chimpanzee cubs, while they themselves were observing and writing scientific works. And she came up with a brilliant thing: as if her compatriots, the British - this is such a tribe, and she as a scientist observes and describes their habits. Sometimes even their own: how it stands, for example, alone at a bus stop and waiting for the bus, but it’s not worth it anyway, not relaxing, but as if heading a line of one person - at the edge of the roadway, hands at the seams, head half a turn . Because she, too, from this tribe, and in her blood reverent attitude to the queues. Well, that's it. With the British, such an approach, of course, works especially effectively, if only because they have a class society, obvious cultural strata. But at home, to be honest, warm. And traveling. Before, I always had such a cell-cell of Rolan Bart in my head, now Kate Fox is right there.
Alan Alexander Milne
"Winnie the Pooh"
I can not imagine how you can live without this book, and why. There are so many delights in it, so many gifts. And it’s like two different stories - the original, Milna, and Russian, Milne-Zakhoder, and also the illustrations of Shepard, and Disney, and our cartoon with the voice of Yevgeny Leonov. In general, the whole world. And all these witty fan tricks: Winnie the Pooh and Taoism; about psycho-Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, Eeyore, Kengi, Tigers, Little Roo, Owls and others. (The most ambiguous, if that, Piglet: he, by the way, wanted to run away from home and become a sailor, and also wrote the Savior.)
When my son Fedor was small, we read it every night, he didn’t want any other - I understand. It is also the best book to learn English: it’s both simple and difficult. And the bottom of it is not visible, unlike many.
Agatha Christie
"Autobiography"
Agatha Christie has written a lot of things, but she has great books. The Murder on the Orient Express is at the level of the Murder on Morgue Street by Edgar Allan Poe (which, by the way, I read as one of the best writers in the world, somewhere along with Shakespeare). And her autobiography - there are wonderful moments. For example, as their car broke down in the desert, and while they tried to repair it, she lay down in the shadow of this truck and fell asleep. And her future husband (the second, an archaeologist), then admitted to her that it was at this moment that he firmly decided to marry her by any means.
Marlene Dietrich
"ABC of my life"
A very nice little book where everything is there: a little biography, a little about the movie, a little about men, a little about clothes, and a recipe for something with chanterelles, and a pot-au-feu recipe - quite working, I cook it. And, for example, about stationery and hardware stores - that they have an inspiring effect on her, comparable only to a visit to the opera. Actually, without this book, with all its charm, you can probably live, but at one time it fascinated me so much that I could not restrain myself and wrote the same form - also as an alphabet. But she was shy and called her simply “The Alphabet of Life” - not “mine”, but I’m not a movie star. And then a few more collections - also alphabetically. Not the worst formal technique, why not.
Tove Jansson
"Moomin troll and comet"
I perceive religious texts badly, I need some kind of guide. But not a theologian - I also perceive theologians badly. Philosophers - sometimes. For example, I read "Candida" - and as if I made a tattoo on my arm: "Everyone should cultivate their own garden." It is always with me, and it is very supportive. The best conductor to Orthodoxy is probably Dostoevsky, to Catholicism Chesterton with his father Brown, but if you choose the most important book for the faith and about faith, it is Moomin and Comet. Like the movie "Melancholy", but only as if for children, and therefore everything does not end as there. Although in general it can be read very differently, very differently. But always - divine delight. And the main one is Moomin-mom, of course. This is the real spiritual leader.
Emma Donohue
"Room"
World bestseller, "Booker" in 2010, but the circulation of the Russian translation - only five thousand copies, I bought it almost by accident. Opened, froze - and read all day and all night. I have no idea, by the way, what is there with the quality of translation, and the author’s style does not matter: simple, fairly simple language. The author is a Canadian journalist, written on the basis of real events, hellish and sensational (a psychopath kidnaps a girl, she lives in his captivity, gives birth to a child, they escape - and the story does not end there). Meat, yes - but this is not the main thing, is it not enough meat around. The main thing is that this book, The Room, is the greatest, highest work of existentialism; Camus and Sartre fight, probably like carps, in their coffins. The first part is the border situation, the second is about the fact that "hell is different"; I'm going to re-read it with the spirit. I made a movie for this book, I didn’t watch it and I probably won’t. And belles-lettres I almost stopped reading after it. I just can not, everything is boring.